14th South Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture - terror australis: race, gender and nation
Professor Emerita Barbara Baird (Flinders Uni)
terror australis: race, gender and nation, This lecture will take an intersectional feminist approach to exploring current public discourse about terror, violence and hate in Australia. It will begin with a critical eye on the political responses across many institutions that followed the tragedy of the massacre of Jewish people at Bondi in December 2025. It will argue that the exceptionalising of antisemitism as a form of hate and racism, particularly since December 2025, has worked to marginalise and in some cases erase from public view not only other forms of racism, but also the significance of gendered violence and the continuation of coloniality. This is done through discursive dominance, public policy and the allocation of public resources. Further, the discourses through which antisemitism is exceptionalised reproduce a particular white and patriarchal view of the nation and its past. Against an approach which might seek to establish a hierarchy of forms of racism, violence or hate, this lecture considers what alternatives an intersectional feminist approach might offer. We live in troubled times, although not all this trouble is new, and the lecture will conclude with an attempt at ideas on, if not a vision of, how to create a better future. We sincerely hope you can join us for this public lecture. Light refreshments will be provided.
|
Featuring Professor Emerita Barbara Baird
Biography
Barbara Baird (she/her) lives and works on unceded Kaurna Yerta. From 1990 until her retirement in 2025 she taught Women's & Gender Studies in universities in Tasmania and SA . Her research concerns the histories and politics of sexuality and reproduction, with a focus on queer issues and abortion, in C20th and C21st Australia. It explores the intersection of gender and sexuality with the politics of race and nation. Her book Abortion Care is Health Care (MUP), a thirty year history of the provision or abortion services in Australia, was published in 2023. Personal Politics: Sexuality, Gender and the Remaking of Citizenship in Australia (Monash UP), co-authored by Barbara with historians Michelle Arrow, Leigh Boucher and Robert Reynolds, was published in 2024. She identifies as an activist academic and since 2017 has been the Co-Convenor of the SA Abortion Action Coalition (saaac). She is a member of Academics for Palestine SA. The best thing about being made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2024 was the recognition of abortion activism as a national good!
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity